Catagenisis
by Kerberos314
Summary: "There's nothing special about growing up in the streets, not in this day and age. I didn't ask for you to help me. I didn't ask to have the eyes of your dead friend. You don't owe me anything, and I don't owe you. Stop trying to make me like you. Why can't you take the hint and leave me alone?" "Well, I guess it's because maybe, deep down, that's just the kind of person I am."


**Because I am a horrible person who shirks their obligations and never finishes what they start.**

 **Just kidding. My other stories will get updated very soon. I just got done with a lot of stuff including final exams. This thought occurred to me on the long drive to and from LA, and I needed to purge it before I get back to my other stuff.**

 **Unfortunately, that long period of introspection made me reconsider what I had already written for the other stories (mainly** **The Butterfly's Dream** **) and so I need to rewrite a goodly chunk. Rest assured, it's being done.**

 **Anyway, enjoy this, or not. Think of it as a necessary evil.**

* * *

 _The first time I met him was like stumbling upon ancient ruins. Something timeless, mysterious, yet you hardly realize they're there until you're right up upon them. Who shaped them, and what they stood for, never quite clear._

 _Yet undeniable that they stood for something._

* * *

Breathless, she turned the corner. Biting her tongue as her ratty sneakers slipped on the mucky ground, slick from the recent rain. The same rain that brought out the stink of the alleyway like a wet dog, which she now gulped down past the throbbing lump in her mouth like a poison toad. Unperturbed by any of these things, because she was home. Home free.

Just like that cut, the purse in her hands brought both pleasure and pain. The adrenaline not yet worn off, yet the knowledge of what she had done would come back soon to bite her.

She clutched the fistful of coin to her chest, safeguarding it from her own misgivings as well as the prowling eyes from apex predators who might seek to deprive her of her catch. Since when did she ever consider her own comfort in peace of mind? This was necessary to survive. There was no room for any other consideration.

"It's not nice to steal, ya know?"

Eyes fluttered like wings and would have taken flight at the sudden and unexpected voice had she been a bird. Instead, whipping around with one hand tucking the ill-gotten gains behind her back, the other brandishing a shiv made from a discarded spatula she had painstakingly whittled down on the concrete to form a point.

"B-back off!"

Trying not to show weakness, she projected a defiant image in the face of… nothing? The alley was empty except for her. No, wait, by the mouth nearest the street sat a pile of rags topped with a wicker lid. So unassuming she hadn't noticed it before.

"This is _mine_." Unafraid- or at least pretending to be of the fellow vagabond who was doubtlessly decades older, she took a step towards the interloper. "And this is **my** alley, go beg somewhere else!" And who was he to be so presumptuous? Pot calling the kettle black.

The scuttle-dark robes shifted and a bandage-wrapped hand emerged to pat down his person.

"I have no need to beg. Everything I need… I have in here."

"T-then- give me your wallet!"

Perhaps emboldened by her first foray into crime, or else so shaken by the mysterious man and his nonchalance, she bore her fangs and took another step towards him. Stomach sinking as she noticed her hand was trembling with the knife, and his shoulders silently heaving with laughter so that everything appeared still.

"Hey!" She shouted louder than intended, loud enough to attract attention of passersby. "Don't laugh at me!" Eyes watering against her will with righteous indignation she could ill afford, she stomped even closer to the unmoving vagrant.

"Sorry," The decrepit straw hat on his head shook and he unfolded his legs to lean himself against the wall. "Not so much laughing at you as… everything."

She didn't understand the idea of black humor, but she did understand the sadness in his voice. Feeling vulnerable and vaguely offended by his apparent conceit, she declined to lower the blade.

"You have red eyes." He noted with seeming offhandedness, covered by her chagrin.

"Just… leave me alone." Her grip tightened around the small sack of old-style metal coins, as if afraid this were all a dream and they would disappear into thin air with the man's admonishment. "How can you sit there and judge me? You don't even know who I am."

"True." He shifted again, giving her the impression it was for her benefit alone. For in this action, she noticed for the first time the stave propped against his shoulder the color of darkness. "I don't know your name. But you remind me of someone I knew, once, long ago…"

"-Just leave me alone."

In no mood to entertain this monk and his hypocrisy, she turned around to stalk her way deeper into the darkness towards the pile of cardboard she called home. There to wait for later when the man no longer blocked her way, and she could use the stolen money to quell her protesting stomach.

She stopped when she heard a voice echo down the claustrophobic walls. Not a man's, but a child's.

" _Yay! Ice-cream! Thanks mama!"_

" _Yes, yes, settle own dear. We still need to pay the nice man for his- hm? Where did it go? I could have sworn I just felt it…"_

Against her will, the words painted an image in her head. There was nothing she could do to halt the scene from unfolding in her mind's eye, an unstoppable cinema reel like a locomotive plowing its way through her conscious. Running roughshod through the unintended consequences of her actions.

"Oh dear, where could it have possibly gotten to? Let's see, I paid for the train ticket, then we had lunch in the park…" With restrained desperation the woman searched the crowded thoroughfare for the woven hemp wallet. She didn't want to show her daughter the distraught which had far more severe consequences than a simple ice-cream cone. It stemmed from having to hitch a ride back to their burrow, maybe not being able to make that month's electricity or rent, maybe having to go hungry.

"Is that it, ma'am?" Stepping out from behind his counter, the swarthy server stooped to pick up a dusty pouch from next to a refuse bin.

"Oh, yes! Thank you ever so much! I must have dropped it when throwing away our picnic trash!"

And then the man would go on to give the other girl an extra scoop, to make up for the one which had melted during the search.

Or whatever way the scene ended. The only thing real for the girl in the alleyway was that she would now go hungry today. Maybe the moral celebration for the returned wealth would make up for it, but she herself would never taste that sweetness.

The hair which shaded her reddened eyes was tussled out of the way by a gentle hand, and a chuckling reverberated throughout her scrawny frame. Both of which leant a warmth to that stripped-bare body. And suddenly, the encroaching Mistralian winter didn't feel so cold, despite the gossamer-thin t-shirt which stood as her the only defense.

"I was right," She pulled away from the too-familiar hand and swiped at it half-heartedly with the shive she had tucked away in her only sock. "You're not a bad person."

"Just leave me alone!"

Dropping the crude weapon, she instead wrapped her trembling arms around herself and her empty stomach. She turned her back on the person who may or may not have wished her harm and simply cried. Wasted tears she could not afford, because she no longer even cared. The last decision she made at least confirming her benevolence, for whatever that was worth. A lofty concept she'd long since given up for the sake of survival, but revived now because of those nostalgic images. Pictures which conjured up something almost truer, but more ephemeral. Something she realized at last as memories, ones of her own life and her own mother so long ago.

Until her tears themselves became memories, along with the day and that strange man who spoiled everything, and then she picked herself back up and dusted herself off as best she could. Shrugged off the hunger and disappointment like she had many times before, and started to pick her way back to her hovel. Having at least proved that the concept of pickpocketing was feasible, she could always try again provided she lived through the night.

Then she realized that she had dropped the knife needed to sever purse-strings, and patted down her non-existent pockets in search of it. Stopping as she reached its usual hiding place, fishing into her lonely sock which bore a familiar lump. She pulled out a single, large, gold coin. Worth nearly as much as the whole contents of the purse, she was certain.

Biting into the disk until her teeth ached and her gum bled, overjoyed that this didn't seem to be a dream or an illusion. She stared at the perforated circle held at arm's length, drinking in the shimmering golden color not unlike the stranger's hair, and the gaping hole in the center as hollow as his clear blue eyes. Never in her life having received such largess, it was tempting to worship it like a gilded idol.

But in the course of her short life she had learned to be practical. So, stashing it away and picking up her means of defense, she slunk her way out of the alley in search of a meal. Still, there was a newfound skip in her step, and her ruby-red eyes sparkled like their own little gems.

Forever cautious about expectations and disappointment. Yet, maybe- just _maybe_ , a little more inclined to take a chance. Hardened exterior fractured a bit in the face of something new.

Maybe she would even treat herself to an ice-cream.

* * *

 _The next few times he appeared were as a wall. At least, that's how I saw him. A hurdle to be conquered, or a corner to be backed up against._

* * *

"Heh, too easy…"

Tossing the stolen credits up and down in her palm like multicolored seeds, they suddenly blossomed into dandelions to be carried off on the breeze.

"Hey! Give that back!"

He looked quizzically at the plastic bits in his palm, skeptical that they were actually currency. True, things had changed in just a few scant years. But somethings remained the same.

"Mm… how 'bout: no? I think I'll return them to their rightful owners. Here," With the same movement, he pocketed the Lien chips and withdrew another one of his perfunctory gold coins, tossing it at her. "-for your troubles."

Deftly she caught the proffered item, and almost immediately threw it back at him as fast as marketgoers averting their gaze from the prevalent misery.

"I don't want your lousy charity!" She growled, resisting the urge to hock her knife at him as well for all the good it would do. "Besides, don't you know those things are worthless?!" Even pawn shops looking at the ancient money twice and giving her the poorest of exchanges.

With a smile both amused and disappointed, he caught the coin on the tip of his staff alongside the other baubles jingling silently.

"Well, one man's trash…"

"-Is still just trash!" She brushed rudely passed him for all the effort was worth, her malnourished pubescence not even making a ripple on his expression. "Now would you just leave me alone?!"

It had worked like this, on and off for a few years now. Showing up whenever she had managed to forget about him or had convinced herself he was gone for good. Butting in and trying to lecture her on how to 'earn' her daily bread. Moving didn't help either, for he followed her throughout the city. No matter which hole she crawled in, he was always waiting by the entrance with a smile on his face like a warm hearth.

How she loathed him for it.

"Because that's not what you want."

She stopped mid-step through her tirade, registering the answer which was more complete than any he had given thus far. Quickly turning that surprise into malice, she turned on her heel.

"Stop pretending like you know me!"

Not letting herself cry again after the first time, she realized he might have seen her frailty which was what started this farce of aid. No one could ever see her weakness, she couldn't afford that.

"Why are you always following me like a stalker?! Why can't you pick on someone else?!"

She brandished the knife, the wrapped leather she had scrounged for a handle keeping her clenched hand from bleeding. At the same time, she knew it was no use unless turned on herself. That was the only way she could prevent him from returning.

Her words did nothing to change the halcyon expression on his face as he contemplated her grip on the weapon. The accusation would do nothing, because there was no evil in his heart. There was nothing. Perhaps it would have been easier if he were a despicable man, if he would just take advantage of her and leave once he had what he wanted. An uncomfortable thought. But again, comfort mattered little compared to survival.

"I just don't want you to make mistakes I know you will regret."

Anger like an overly-taught string had suddenly snapped. There was a calm before the ruckus of her life reverberated back all at once.

"Mistakes?! When have I ever even had any **choice**?! How can I make mistakes when I don't get to choose what I need to do to stay alive?!"

Frail limbs trembled, matted hair seemed to rise on end and bloodshot eyes bore into him with a fury no child her age should ever possess. Yet there it was, and it was exactly how he remembered, exactly what he feared.

"There is always a choice."

And there were the words she never wanted to hear. Stumbling back like she was one of those boozers getting tossed out on the street each night, forced to sober up before they returned.

"AAAAAAHHHH!"

Stabbing blindly at her problems, a primal scream tore through her throat and chilled her to the core.

Cut. Cut. Cut. Cut.

Crude knife falling and clattering down to join the rest of the trash which was once her home. Hands wavering as the blisters grew and then receded like soap bubbles.

"See what you made me do?" There was no malice behind the accusation. In fact, she wondered if she was still talking to him, or if he disappeared like he always did and she was left to admonish herself.

A shadow fell across that twilight alley.

*Donk*

"Ow!"

"Quit being so dramatic." The Tartuffe rolled his eyes over an equally hollow smile, sighing as he toyed with the shredded cardboard at the end of his khakkhara he had beaned her with. The trinkets on the end jangling without making a sound. "Now why'd you go and do that? It's supposed to rain tonight, you know?"

Happy white clouds plodded languidly over them. She'd have to take his word for it, because the sky was never something she desired to look at. It wasn't pleasant thinking about something so free yet so far out of reach. Not like she wanted to trust him, either.

"Would you go away, please?" She had no more weapons to threaten him with. No more acerbic words to drive him away.

"Is that what you'd like me to do?" The disappointment in his voice, was it for her, or himself?

She had no answer. Not for a long while in which the clouds still passed lazily, uncaring for what was happening on the odd rock below.

What was the alternative to him? To this self-righteous fool who had no power nor desire to do something to change the world? Is feeling frustration better than not feeling anything at all?

"Well, well, what do we have here?"

As if to answer her question, the city herself hacked up some of its slimiest, foulest denizens. Spitting them out at the entrance to the alleyway.

"What's a monk and a little girl doing on our turf? Not doing anything… _illegal_ I hope?" The perverse snickers and jibes from behind the goateed man in gaudy sunglasses were like slugs sliding over her skin. "S'alright with us, but nothing happens in our neighborhood without us getting our cut!"

Undignified, uproarious laughter was severed with a calm voice carrying dignity like a blade.

"Excuse me. We were having a conversation here."

"Excuse you? _**Excuse**_ you?!" Stomping forward like a gunslinger in an old western she'd caught all twenty-seconds of before she'd been chased out of the theater. The monk stood there as unperturbed as the shadow from the clocktower. "Did you not hear me? This is our neck of the woods, and you'd be _grateful_ we're letting you off without a thumping. I can sniff that you dun' got no money on ya, so it would hardly be worth it!"

"A wise choice." Not losing that unruffled smile as he leaned his head back and stared up at the white clouds now tinged with a bit of gray. "See, I was just lecturing this youngling here about making choices."

She hated when he did that especially. Talking like he was so much older than she, when he couldn't have been out of his teens. Not a hint of stubble on his otherwise immaculate face contradicted only by those mirrored marks like claws. Some one should have lectured _him_ about making good choices before he got those officious tattoos.

But she didn't complain. Not even when he presumed to speak for the both of them. It could have been because he was innocuously positioning himself in between her and the goons. For all the good that would do.

"See, the way I perceive it, you four also have a critical choice to make:" Without making a move, the bronze rings linked to the stave's cap rung out, striking the hour. The first sound they'd ever made, as far as she was aware. "Leave us be, or come to regret it."

"Tch!" The main thug scoffed, breaking out in unrestrained laughter not soon after. "You can't be serious! Do you really think we'd be swayed by your religious bull-crap? Brother, I deal with realities." Fast as a viper, faster than the girl had ever seen anyone move before the greasy man flashed a blade, leveling it hairs away from the young monk's throat. "I deal with real life, _real steel_. Something you can touch, something you can depend on. Since you don't got no cash, I'm only interested in whatever else you can give me!"

The pretense of a smile had disappeared, but that was about all that had changed in the stalwart monk.

"I suppose maybe you're right." Her heart skipped a beat when he spoke, because despite facing away, it felt like he was talking to her. "There never really is any choice, is there? Free will is an illusion. Life is just a machine clinking along, around and around. There is only the illusion of choice, because we don't always see how we interact with other people. Don't see that there is no other path ahead for any of us other than the one track we follow."

Contrary to her anger, she felt incredibly sad at this proclamation. Almost whispering a silent prayer for the death of innocence.

If he was right, that too died long ago.

If the gang member was a viper, then the monk was the forest in which he dwelled. The ground upon which he slithered. There was no need to move, because he was already there.

"Wha-"

The carcasses left when he was done looked like they had always been there, were part of the living humus which carpeted the forest floor. Or would soon be. They and the very action of killing were part and parcel of the fabric of this city of virtue and sin. What was left was a lingering question:

"Why?"

The monk- if that was what he really was, paused as he strode carelessly amongst the rotten fruit. That was not the question he was expecting.

"Not, 'how'?" She shook her head adamantly.

"Why? If there is no such thing as choice, if it doesn't matter what we do, why did you take pity on me? Why did you save me?"

"It's not pity." Regardless he had an answer for every question because he'd heard them all. "I told you, you reminded me of someone I once knew."

Casting a hand over his shoulder, he made to leave her then amongst the killing field, to become one with the background forest once again.

"But I can see now, you're not them. So, sayonara."

"Wait!"

Weariness on his shoulders, a man used to bearing the world there. He turned, despite this. With that painted smile she despised reapplied like makeup.

"T-that's not what you want, is it?"

His smile dropped, and with it her heart. What was she doing? Isn't this what she wanted all along, to finally be rid of this meddlesome man? Especially now considering just how dangerous she knew him to be.

"You don't want to be alone, do you?" Is that what he wanted, is that what she wanted? "No one really wants to be alone… not forever."

"No. But perhaps I'm just being reminded that I have no choice in the matter." And like the tide, he turned once again to ebb away into the growling weather outside their little slice of reality. "You should go find shelter, the storm's coming."

"Why? If we don't have a choice, why should I even bother?!" She yelled at his back, the sprinkling droplets falling from her matted green locks to the crook of her watery crimson eyes. "I'm just going to die, right? What's the point in living? What's the point in trying? If it doesn't matter, why should I even try to be good? That's what you're telling me, you know!"

Thunder rumbled, and she thought she saw his shoulders shake. But it was perhaps just her as she was on the verge of tears- again. He was right. Things don't ever change. Not her blubbering, not the hunger in her belly, not the blood in the streets nor the cruelty of man. No one could stop the rain from falling.

So chilled was her body by the pelting droplets that she hardly noticed when they ceased to strike her.

"That's some guilt trip, ya know?" She looked up to see the wide-brimmed straw hat eclipse the angry sky, keeping the water off her shivering frame. "Now you remind me of another little brat I used to know."

"Did you let them drown and starve in the rain, too?"

"And worse." He guffawed. "That little brat was me."

"You must have been a real dunce." Missing both the irony and tender smile which formed in place of the mask.

"Still am. S'pose nothing really changes, huh?"

Giggling girlishly was not something she was used to or enjoyed, but it was impossible to suppress when a heady feeling rose through her body escaping the encroaching cold.

"You're s-still as thick as a r-rock…"

"Naruto."

"H-Huh?"

"My name is Naruto."

She just nodded, not disinclined to offer her own name, but unable to with her teeth now jittering and clacking a machine-gun in her head. Sight quickly dimming too under the cacophony of sound and numbness.

"Hey, you alright?"

His answer was for the seaweed-green head to bury itself in his stomach, unconsciously nuzzling into his bedraggled robes for what warmth they provided. He sighed, scooping up the fragile girl as if she would crumble into dust in his arms. Walking out of the claustrophobic alley and into the encroaching downpour, changing nothing.

"Why do we do, the things we do?"

* * *

 _From that moment on, he was a shelter. A roof over my head and four walls surrounding me. I still do not know why exactly or when he started to care for me, instead of his usual dispassionate courtesy. Why he did not simply disappear into the night like before, and never come back. I know I reminded him of his friend, of himself and the mistakes he made long ago. But I like to think he accepted me for who I was, too. Someone different, someone new._

* * *

"Come on, put some effort into it."

Nothing much had changed in that smile or that casual stance, but what did was the world and her perception of it. She no longer loathed that barren grin with nothing behind it.

Now that she was constantly irked by his silent teasing.

"What the fuck do you think I've been doing?!" She straightened up with a hand on her back, and the other on the wrist which he had smacked with his shakῡjo to disarm her. At least there was now some muscle there to dampen the blow. "Ow!" -And the one after.

"Language. And this is the path _you chose_ , remember? I told you it'd be hard if you wanted to come with me. I'm no good at being a farmer or shopkeeper, so this is what I can offer."

Rubbing the new sore spot while massaging the mental one. He never missed a chance to harp on her about that point, constantly testing her patience. That's what it was: a test. It was always a test, and she understood that he was just waiting for her to give up, to give in to her old ways.

"You're a pretty terrible monk as well." He rolled his eyes.

"And how many times do I have to tell you, I'm not a monk, I'm a sage."

"Yeah, yeah. Regular-old Pedo-Sage. Ow! What'd you do that for?"

There was no offense taken to her insult. And if anything, the strike seemed obliged as he swelled with a mirthful pride. Her twelve-year old self wasn't sure how to feel about that.

"Five-minute break, yeah?"

She nodded, relieved as she took the burden off her feet and flopped down on the warm lawn. It was unfathomable to her how some people could complain about the itchiness of grass, when to her it felt like the wings of angels caressing her bronze skin. Her hair splayed out behind her, that same emerald color blending in to the turf as her thoughts blended into the gently rolling hills.

"Here."

Opening her eyes to see a handful of rice balls which had become common over the past weeks, she wondered when she had drifted off.

"Thanks."

Biting into one, she wrinkled her nose at the salty taste of mackerel but didn't dare complain. She could see his laughing blue eyes in the periphery of her vision and treated this like any other test.

"Why did you choose this way? Why a … huntress?"

The question was awkward, stumbling upon the words like they were foreign. But it wasn't that fact which caused her to choke. After a few solid pats on the back to dislodge the piece of kombu in her lung and a moment of embarrassed mumbling she finally gave him an answer.

"I don't want to be weak like I was back then. I want to be strong." He tried to hide the frown at her answer, but it was pitifully easy to read the man-child once she'd gotten to know him. "Spending my whole life just trying to survive…that's not living. I want to be strong enough to make my own choices and stand by them. I don't want to be dependent on good will or luck- I want to make my own!"

Having realized that in her animated speech she had crushed the other onigiri, she sat back down with a rosy tint to her cheeks and tried to hide her blush under the verdant locks she was only now allowing to grow. Before, having cropped it in a pixie cut since the day she learned how to wield a knife for convenience's sake. Now, she had a choice.

Rescuing what was left of the tenderly made repast, she stared at the broken ball as if it were her own life she was trying to put back together, unable to stop herself from opening up her mushy insides. "Maybe if my parents are out there… I want to prove that they were wrong about me. I want to make them regret leavening me alone."

The strong and gentle hand which rested upon her scalp had also become an accustomed feeling as of late. The long-suffering sigh the natural course as she prepared for him to give her another lecture.

What she did not expect was for him to pull her into his side, embracing her squirming form with his chiseled muscles dampened by the layers of trappings he wore even in this almost oppressive heat.

"You shouldn't think like that. If it was a decision which took them away from you, know that they did it because they thought it best for you. Trust me."

She was prepared to rebuke his presumptuousness, but found she was unable to deny that lilt of empathy which carried through. The experience with which he commiserated allowed her to be held by him, tucked away under his protection.

"Are you sure this is what you want to do? Even if you train constantly, being a huntress is dangerous. It might have even been how your parents died. I won't be here to protect you forever."

"Like I need you." She sniffled. When did she become such a crybaby? It must have been that open book of a face which stared down at her, whispering sweet-nothings with those crystal blue eyes. "I'll just have to be better. I'll be so strong that I'll never have to make a choice like that."

"Hmm, sounds to me like you're ready to get back to training then, huh?" He asked with an impish grin as she leapt to her feet, brandishing one of the training knives he had given her.

"You're on!"

Quickly distancing herself with her illusionary abilities which he accommodated for the sake of exercise, she missed his own show of smoke and mirrors. The disguise he used to hide the pang of guilt which he could never allow to worm its way onto his conscience.

If only death was a choice.

* * *

 _He kept his promise, and I can't fault him for that. Training me until I could stand on my own, until I didn't have to resort to stealing to make my way and instead got accepted to a hunting school on scholarship. He paved the road for me. He, the base which held me up and spanned that fathomless chasm between privilege and poverty which the upper-echelons still deny exist._

 _No longer was he in my sight, though. And if he was underfoot, he was doing a good job of hiding it. I can't say that he abandoned me, nor that he didn't do a good job in setting a foundation. I could blame him for the pitfalls and potholes I fell into. But I suppose it's just the job of others to undermine hard work._

 _That, or there is simply always a place where any sidewalk ends._

* * *

"Not bad…" The woman in front drawled as she picked her way over to her, high-heels ringing like sword blows with each step. "I must say, those illusions of yours are really something."

Pushing herself to her feet with disheartening familiarity and finding it difficult to stand on her own. She sneered at the facetious praise being given to her by her opponent- at once again failing to not feel helpless.

She did not need Naruto's help to recognize the saccharine taste of conceit in the woman's words. Years of living from hand to mouth on the streets had indurated her to people of that kind.

People like Cinder Fall had everything handed to them, even when they didn't. The right alignment of the stars provided them good looks, deadly charm, and most importantly, indurated them to the suffering of humanity. Even if she hadn't been born one, the Black Widow of a woman was no different than the bluebloods who spat on her very existence. A lack of empathy was what it took to reach the top, unafraid to step on the backs of others to get where they were.

'And there, but for the grace of God, go I…' It could have easily been her lauding victory over someone of lesser strength but greater morals. And why wasn't it?

*BRIIIIIINNGG!*

Saved by the bell, this time.

"Alright you two, that's enough for today." Their instructor intoned, ignorant or perhaps enchanted by Cinder's elegant overtures. "Go get yourself cleaned up. Nice job out there."

"Come see me afterwards." Her hot breath tickled her ear as she passed, whispering sensual conspiracies.

This was nothing like the intimate touch of her master, this aside made her shiver. It was plain to see the amber-eyed stare spelled trouble. Not the delinquent kind of risqué encounters and social disobedience. But the serious kind, the life-changing kind. The kind which backed you into a corner in which the only way out was up into the light or down into a grave.

Already she knew that she wouldn't refuse. Knowing all that, knowing perhaps what was in store for her if she followed that tempting Siren. Did she hate herself for that? No. She just hated how the choice was made for her.

* * *

 _All along he saw it. The reason he approached me all those years ago wasn't out of kindness, but fear. That red-eyed stare full of greedy ambition and ghosts of the past was too much for his heavy heart to ignore. Even if history was fated to repeat itself, he had to at least try._

 _And he succeeded. For a time._

 _However, the period of his dearth made me aware of all the shadows upon the walls in the cavern he forged for me. Travesties of the real thing, yet I grew enchanted with these wonderous images within reach rather than the realities which lay beyond my chains._

 _I should have known better. He shouldn't have tried so hard to protect me._

 _We both should have listened more to the lessons in fairy tales._

* * *

"Some things never change, do they?"

Managing to sound both disappointed and vindicated, Cinder dragged a manicured finger across the intricately carved stone of the hallway. This action- or perhaps her mere presence seemed a poisoning of the ancient and proud Academy which had served as a beacon of hope for many decades in the Kingdom of Vale. Neither alliteration proved far from the truth, and she had to repress a shiver at the thought of what was to happen next.

"Is something the matter, Emerald?"

Shaking her head vigorously, bobbed green hair splaying out in a verdant halo which hid her fear. It also hid her disappointment, as she remembered once, in innocence, extolling her desire to walk these very halls.

"Is it not true that nothing should remain immutable? Everything must change in order to survive, and this monument to complacency has stood for far too long as it is. You of all people should agree, no?"

Her life had come back full circle to series of questions with only one answer. Other choices which were mere illusion. For if she was to deny this woman her lip-service, she would be forfeiting her life. The discomforting lie was, as always, a small price to pay to milk life just a little longer.

"I'd like to think it's not the stonework which makes the academy, but the people who are a part of it."

Continuously turning, life came around again to slap her in the face.

"Oh? Well, as far as I'm aware, the staff hasn't had a good shakeup in well over a decade either." Cinder answered the interjecting voice coolly, unfettered by her machinations laid bare, there on that granite floor. "All that clout, mistakes being perpetuated year after year. Ozpin is still the headmaster, is he not? Why, I bet he was headmaster when my _mother_ attended."

The visiting voice chuckled genially, conceding the point with a humorous grace. He who could break through all walls while Emerald could still not bear to turn around or even avert her eyes from the floor.

"You're not wrong there. But each year brings a new batch of fresh students with new perspectives." Without needing to look, she could hear the clack of his stave on the hard rock floor, not unlike Cinder's own battle march. "It's like two people reading the same story and getting something totally different out of it. Oh- except every now and then when the creator reaches in and tweaks of a few lines, adds a character or two to the roster."

"Well, seeing as we are just transfer students, I will differ to you as you seem to have more experience in the matter mister…"

"Uzumaki." That jovial lilt which appeared after a few weeks of training in the Mistralian countryside had not changed. And, if anything, had gained a point or two in cheekiness. His character evolved. "Professor, actually. I guess. Though I often wonder at why they hired an unaccredited person like me in the first place!"

"I am sure the one in charge has his reasons."

"You seem to be familiar with Ozzy miss…"

"Cinder." Offering her hand daintily while she kept the other folded underneath her ample bosom. "Cinder Fall."

"Charmed." The normally unflappable woman was irked somewhat when the blond man seemingly lost interest half-way through the gesture of genuflecting, looking up from his head poised in the act to appraise the other two flanking the woman's sides. "And who, may I ask, are your companions?"

"This is Mercury Black." Recomposing herself after nearly letting her annoyance show, Cinder deferred to the silver-haired youth to her right who appeared no older nor younger than Naruto himself. A fact which he clearly noticed if the look of flippancy was anything to go by. Or maybe that was just his baseline setting like his own tired smile.

"How do you do?" He asked, taking the youth's delinquency in stride.

"And this…"

No point in trying to hide a tree amongst the forest from one who had raised her as a sapling. Forced to look now, if not meet his eyes. She would have liked to believe the years had developed her. Maybe not to enough to fill the womanly silhouette Cinder embodied. Her tomboyish figure would never be that svelte, her ambitious gaze never that keen. Growing into her self-confidence hadn't been without growing pains.

However, in front of that unchanging presence she felt like a penniless child once again. Indeed, little had changed on his part. Hair might have been cropped short from its unkempt dreads, and his charcoal robes replaced with an equally dark high-collared suit tailored to a tee. But the things which mattered like his kindly smile would never be eroded by time.

Whereas she… did she really change at all?

"…is Emerald Sustrai."

Able to offer her hand if not her presence. She could feel that horizonless gaze penetrating through her just as she could feel Cinder's smoldering glare for that chaste kiss on the back of her hand.

"Of course you are."

* * *

… _At the time, it felt like an earthquake had come to tear the ground beneath my feet and swallow me whole. I would have welcomed it, even. For nothing was worse than bearing under the brunt of that stare, like direct sunlight for one who had spent too long in darkness. I thought he was my comeuppance, my fate to return to dust from whence we all came._

 _Little was I to know that earthquakes do not work that way, crushing rather than swallowing. Little was I to fathom that I was the fault, and he the land lifting me up under my feet._

* * *

Fire and brimstone. She wondered if the world looked this way in the beginning, when it first started to congeal out of its primordial ooze. When the moon was not yet shattered, and monsters were all that roamed the plains.

Rather than shake her of this notion, the teeth-rattling roar overhead seemed to cement the illusion. It was more comforting to believe that this was a new beginning, rather than the end.

"Emerald… why?"

The plaintive question struck her heart as surely as the arrow had pierced the Spartan warrior's chest.

Why indeed. Why stood she now alongside the destruction of it all when she knew that she belonged in between, straddling that line between moral righteousness? Was it just to be contrary? There was no more jealousy in her for their gilded world, not enough caring to want it burned. She had her world of salt and earth- at least, at one time she did.

But what about that innocence? What about that rose-themed girl who looked at her morosely whilst cradling her friend's- _their_ friend's head in her lap? Did she truly resent that purity so much that she wanted to destroy it?

"Silly child," The goddess of flame by her side answered in her stead. That magic called fate deciding her words. "She isn't like you. Emerald has always seen this world for what it truly is. It's the reason she is alive, and the Nikos girl isn't. Life is uncomfortable, brutish and short, and only the strong have time for frivolous things like morals and regret." She sneered the word as she looked down her nose at the trembling girl hunched over the cooling corpse of her ally. "They were the ones who invented them, to keep fools like you chained in their place!"

On her feet, or on her knees, she stood because there was never any choice in the matter. Between life and sure death, there was never a decision to be made.

"I'm sorry Ruby…"

If only she could be. If only the girl would look at her with betrayal to justify her actions. Anything but the incomprehension and disbelief faceted in those silvery eyes.

"You see now, girl? It was always going to be this way. The fate of this world created by man was written in stone since they first crawled across the ground."

High above, the dragon wailed, circling like a carrion-eater waiting for its chance. A harbinger of the destruction she preached.

"Finish her." Taking the obsidian blade handed to her automatically, lifelessly, Emerald stared between it and the unmoving huntress who dared stand against fate. "What are you waiting for?" Cinder chided with an acidic smile. "Put her out of her misery."

Stalking forward with that jagged blade, inexorably slow. Inevitable, wasn't it? Almost comforting in the fact that nothing she could do would change the outcome. Fitting that it should end like this, just how it began. Her mirror image flashing in the glassy weapon. Choice was a burden, and this was sweet relief.

Movement, a bird taking flight startled her as the girl stood up, unfolding her scythe like the wings of an archangel.

"Why?" The glassy blade brandished in her hand wavered, knowing it could do nothing to the girl who stood as a gargoyle over the tomb of her friend. "Nothing will bring her back. It's all over." It was over before it began.

Ruby shook her head and the tower which they all stood on felt like it was rocking back and forth in sympathy.

"Big sis might get mad at me for saying this, but I'm not afraid of death. I'm much more afraid of losing my friends, Em." Meek though it may have been, the voice cut through her as surely as the massive scythe which stood by the red-cloaked girl's side. "It doesn't matter if nothing I do will bring her back. Pyrrha fought to protect what she loved. To protect Jaune, her team, me, even you, Em. You can't change what happened between us, the friendship we made."

To lash out, to cut until her own palms bled and the incomprehensible words besieging her were nothing but mad babbling. That was what she wanted to do, what she felt she had to do to remain alive and sane.

"The past is the one thing you can't change! You can still choose to do what you know is right, Emerald! As long as you never stop trying, that's all that matters!"

" _Somewhere along the way, I suppose I stopped trying."_

The glass blade fell form her hand, clattering on the rubble floor and signaling a Pavlovian memory buried in her subconscious. Another answer she'd never wanted to hear, the time she confronted her former master on why he was at Beacon.

" _After training you though, I suppose I got a second wind." He chuckled at a joke known only to him. "You made me want to believe in the freedom of choice again, and so I decided to help spread that ability far and wide. Where would be better than a school, a field of fresh minds in which to plant those seeds of doubt?"_

She'd always known that what she was doing was wrong. Ever since the first pocket she picked, telling herself it was necessary to stay alive. She knew her moral compass wouldn't let itself be buried. Even under the layers of ash Cinder piled over it with her words of doom and salvation, that needle still pulled towards true North.

" _Being unpredictable… finding the choice no one even knew existed, that was once my specialty. You helped me find it again. You showed me a miraculous world- not just with your illusions, but with the reality of you._

 _And even if I lose track of that attitude for a while, I know it will return home from its wanderings._

"… _just like I know you will, too."_

"I…I can't." Staring at her unsullied hands where once that objectionable blade rested. No longer willing to blame anyone else for her actions. "No. I won't. I'm not going to lay back and follow your orders any longer!"

Turning around with her back towards the reaper and her front towards destiny, she stood obstinately between the two, arms spread wide.

"Go ahead. If you want Ruby, you're going to have to kill me."

Funny, how it was always at the end of life that we learned some things were worth dying over. If only then we were allowed to go back and choose what things those were, the story might read differently. It might not feel so wasted.

"Fine."

The arrow was already in flight by the time the words left her lips. Unblinking as it approached, Emerald greeted it head on. She held no enchantment about her worth to that cruel woman, and thus awaited her fate with open arms. As her own decision at long last, and no one else's.

"That's enough."

Taking fate by the reigns, a hand reached out to grab the arrow mid-flight. Plucking it out of the air like stopping the hands of time themselves from turning. Standing there like he'd always been, immovable pillar of stone. The only thing different between then and now being the pall suit-coat cracked at the front, unveiling a fiery orange layer underneath.

"Uzumaki, this is a surprise." Unperturbed, Cinder manifested and knocked another arrow as if the first demonstration were not enough. It was her choice to ignore it, after all. "Why don't you stand aside and let me deal with my unruly subordinate, hm?"

"I've already decided that I'm not going to let you do that." Crushing the arrow so that diamond bits trickled from his palm, he turned head on to face the woman and the poles themselves seemed to move with him. "And if there's one thing you ought to know, it's that Uzumaki Naruto never changes his mind once he's set about it." He smirked, manifesting his shakῡjo from the tip cradled in his palm downwards, the carbon rod birthing from his palm. "It's not too late for you to quit, though. I'm told I can be stupidly forgiving."

"That'll be the death of you." The woman shot, matching his staff with five more arrows set ablaze by her Semblance.

"Not today, I think."

Not if he had any say in the matter.

* * *

 _It was all over. Cinder's rebellion at least, and certainly my part in it. It might have been the end of my rebirth, my second chance at life if not for that unapologetically naïve girl. Even if the others no longer trusted me, I would not stop trying to overwrite those ugly scars in my past. Burying them underneath the layers of good decisions made henceforth. It was easier, knowing I was never alone in this. Not any more, as long as I had my say._

 _I suppose I wanted him to be my chalice, my holy grail, my fountain of youth and be by my side for all time. Imagined that I could carve him into those things, if only I whittled away at it long enough._

 _But a famous artist once said that he did not create the art trapped within the stone, merely removed everything which didn't belong in the first place._

 _Art, or maybe life is the greatest illusion. I was always good with illusions, and especially at deluding myself. Continuing to believe until the end that he would not become my mausoleum like he was for so many others._

 _Was it really so bad though, to be surrounded and guarded for all eternity?_

* * *

"Either one of us could have saved her."

The statement was as clear as the rain soaking their mourning clothes, his never changing from that somber color. He was always mourning.

"Yes."

With no pleasure they both watched the casket be lowered into the cold, hard ground. No movements made to refute this absolute.

"Why?" No longer begrudging the tears which fell beyond her control, she lashed out at the choices he had knowingly made. "Why didn't you stop me? Because you wanted to teach me another lesson?"

"It's not always about you, or me." Expression as placid as ever, though his words biting through a bitter root to reach the surface. "More than anything, she wanted her actions to have meaning. Nothing from this point on would have lived up to her expectations, nothing would have made as much an impact. She went to her death knowing this. Who am I to deny that desire?"

Gods did he want to, though. His heart was a pitch-black memorial on which thousands of names were written. If only he could stop adding to that list, if only he could scour the surface and be done with it. Sadly, that was not a choice he was able to make.

"You could have prevented it!"

Voice cutting through the somber procession, heads bowed turning towards the commotion. Regret for the outburst, but not for the intent, she grabbed him by the coat he'd yet to take off since the battle and whisked them away to a land of make-believe. Memories both pleasant and otherwise dredged up from the darkest recesses to walk revenant on the grassy fields of Mistral. He indulged her in these fantasies, however painful they might have been. Perhaps to sooth his guilty conscience.

"You could've ended it before it began. Why didn't you?" Head bowed so he could not see those blood-red gems he fixated with nostalgia. "Are we just playthings to you? I suppose that to you we all look like children, incapable of making our own decisions. Is that why you smother it with the blanket of 'fate'? Because you don't think we can handle the truth about an immortal walking among them?"

"When did you figure it out?" Hardly surprised that she discovered his secret, perhaps just curious to know for future reference. For all that was worth, which must have been nothing. For it did not even merit an answer. "I never believed in fate. Even during my darkest hour of this life which I never asked for, I wanted to reject it with all my heart. Even if that meant everything which happened was my fault, my mistake or my conscious choice. We all have to stand by our choices." He defended with halfhearted resignation.

"And what will you choose, now?" _What is it that you want?_

The ageless being had no answer. At least, none that he would allow himself to share. He had long since given up the right to wish for anything. He still didn't believe in fate- not in the kind that was made for you at least, but the one you penned for yourself.

That selfsame script made him incapable of resisting when those hands fastened around his neck pulled him close. It might have been raining outside, bright sunny day here but her eyes were crimson sunsets which drew closed over yearning lips- a salmon colored horizon. A perfect sunset crashed into him and spilled into a perfect night.

It was wrong. Everything about that kiss she forced upon him had him crying in dismay. Desperate and novice technique reminding him of how he'd all but raised her from a broken child, picked up the eggshell pieces and nursed them until she could fly on her own. Emerald was like a daughter to him, it was true. And yet, a stranger, a tormenting memory and perhaps his greatest regret.

Perhaps this was why he did not resist, not wanting to regret anything more. Allowing that comforting lie which whispered false-assurances that he had no choice.

Cinder was right in one thing. Nothing lasts forever, and soon the multicolor fantasia crumbled to dust all around them. Pieces of the illusion falling into the earth piled upon the final resting place of Pyrrha Nikos.

"Nobody really wants to be alone." She whispered, stepping away from his body which suddenly resented her absence, lamented even the wadded cloth falling from her grip.

No, he never wanted to be alone. But for the sake of others, for the sake of his own sanity he told himself it was the lesser of two evils. Insisting that it was the only way for him to go on, never realizing that perhaps a solo existence wasn't really life to begin with.

"And what do you want?"

"Tch." She scoffed, watching as the mourners filtered off one by one until only the truly inconsolable and dedicated remained. Which one were they? "You're still as thick as ever." Past the grimness, past the rain, there was perhaps a hint of a silver lining on the horizon.

No, you can't- is what he wanted to say. But that would be the utmost in hypocrisy, and he didn't dare sully this day any more than it already was. It wasn't always about them, after all.

"It's not going to be easy, you know?" He offered instead, wetting his lips which the kiss had sucked all moisture out of.

"Yeah, but it's my choice, isn't it?"

Was it? Did they ever get to chose whom they loved, and how or when? Or did they only seize the opportunity when it was presented to them, or let it pass by for fear it was nothing but a hallucination to begin with?

She wouldn't force him to stay by her side, independent woman that she had become and always been. Wouldn't have a say, either, in the way he would watch her wither and grow old while he continued to live unchanged. It wouldn't be fair, it wouldn't be right or just or good in any sense of the word. It would be a depraved and often one-sided love.

But it would be theirs, and no one else's. Someday becoming another memory that he carried around with him wherever he went, another layer which made up the outer crust he draped himself in and all but smothered that carefree person he'd once been.

It's alright. Nothing lasts forever in the same way. Buried by night, time, the earth which swallows it whole and chews it up, distilling the base components and transmuting it to something new, something hardened and renovated by the experience.

And someday, it would rise again to the surface.

* * *

 _In the end, he was none of those things._

 _Cliché love stories would have it be that I was his precious gem- his Emerald, and he my stalwart rock. Our love lasting forever through all eternity._

 _But we are not unflinching stone. We are human, with all the choices and duties that bind us and set us free. And the ephemerality which makes it meaningful._

 _He was all of those things, though- and more. My sun and my stars, the ground beneath my feet and the one which would eventually entomb me, my epitaph scrawled on his unflinching heart._

 _Larger than life- larger than all life, he was my world._

 _And I, his Remnant._

* * *

A knock on the door at the peripheries of his mind. He looked up from the papers on his desk, not really paying attention to them anyway but lost in the memories which lay behind that oak portal. Now was not the time for those indulgences, though. It would not be fair to the individual waiting on the other side.

"Come in."

The heavy door opened unapologetically, violet eyes staring back at him from the darkness of the hallway like the first stars appearing in twilight.

Looking back, taking stock of his youthful visage. Lean yet soft, youthful but with a shrewd glint behind those twinkling aquamarine gems. Just like his picture, unchanged. Perhaps with the barest creases etched from where his eyes would crinkle in a smile, which was a more frequent occurrence these days, apparently.

"Good afternoon. I've been expecting you."

Only a hint of surprise flashed across her heart-shaped face before she unwaveringly followed his extended hand and sunk into one of the colorful plush chairs which decorated his office like sea anemones. Waited patiently for him there in her cocoon of defense, a trait that was clearly drilled into her for many years.

"Umm, can I ask why you wanted to see me, Headmaster?" Hesitance she wasn't accustomed to, unnerved by the intense examination.

"Yes, you can." He snickered at her glare as that patience wore out.

"Why did you call me here?"

On the first day of school no less. Sure, she didn't exactly have the squeakiest clean record out there, but she hadn't done anything to warrant such scrutiny, did she? There was plenty of time to contemplate it while his twinkling eyes held their own silent conversation.

"You know, you remind me of someone."

He stated, ignoring her question and further irritating her much as her mother had always warned her he would.

"I'm my own person, you know." She huffed, mimicking his lackadaisical pose but with a defense air as her arms crossed.

"Yes, of course you are, Ms. Sustrai. May I call you Ianthe?" His smile told her he would do so anyway, and it made her feel like a petulant child, despite his youthful depiction. "You are indeed a unique individual, which is why I want to know your answer to this question: What was your purpose in coming here? Why did you decide to become a huntress?"

While it was something that she should have had an answer prepared for- did in fact have the words memorized which she'd painstakingly metered out on her transcript. Somehow, sitting in front of this almost-legendary figure, the flowery prose she'd practiced seemed even more hollow than the selfish truth.

"I guess, it's because of my mother." Ianthe considered, looking down at her calloused hands, sculpted from the hard work it had taken her to get there. "I admired her, I wouldn't mind following in her footsteps. And… and I just want to make her proud." Another thing she'd unwittingly inherited from her mother besides the tomboyish attitude and borderline kleptomania was her penchant for waterworks in his presence. He grew nostalgic at the first signs, but didn't allow himself to reminisce.

"She was an incredible woman." A simple statement accompanied by a simple nod. "And she would be proud. Not because of how much you are like her, but because of all the ways you are different." The moment of reverence which had unwittingly descended left with equal celerity and a smile replaced his somber expression. "For example: She may have been hotheaded, but you certainly surpassed her disciplinary record within the first few weeks!"

"You knew her, didn't you?" Resisting the urge to blush under the praise and truthful measurement, she conjured up one of the few things she knew about the mysterious man.

"I did." Allowing himself a fleeting moment where he superimposed that face over the one across from him before he banished it. "Would you like me to tell you about her?"

"Yes." Sorrow giving way to earnest. "Yes, please."

Volunteering a smile which was so much brighter than the one of obligation he wore all the time. And Ianthe found something familiar in the way his eyes shimmered with mischievousness.

"Did she ever tell you about when I was training her? We needed to get her gear, and it must have been the first time she ever went shopping for clothing. I remember I had the hardest time convincing her she needed to start wearing a bra…"

* * *

 _We do not always get to choose how our epitaph reads. Maybe we should just be grateful we get one at all._


End file.
